India to provide skill training to 109 million new entrants: Punjab CM

Shillong: India has to provide skill training to 109 million new entrants into the job markets and 460 million people to upscale their skills by 2020, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said here on Monday.

"The country needs to provide skill training to 109 million new entrants in to the job markets and around 460 million people to be re-skilled and up-skilled by 2020," Badal said after chairing a meeting of NITI Aayog sub-group of chief ministers on skill development.

"Now the time has come that right to skill be legalized since we have already empowered our citizens with the Right To Information (RTI), right to food and right to education," he said.

Badal said every youth must be skilled to enable them to compete in a global village.

While stating that India today is a youngest country because 65 per cent of the population is below the age of 35, a NITI Aayog official admitted that our country faces a serious problem of unemployment especially amongst the youths, ladies and low strata of the society.

Unlike in countries like Korea, Japan and Germany whose population is 80 percent skilled, Badal said India’s skilled population is only about 12 percent.

"I think the per capita income of our country is low because our nation is unskilled nation, our country is far behind other countries in skill development," he said.

Spelling out the focus priorities that each states ought to take, Badal said recommendations to the CEO has to be submitted and specific on sectors where there are potentials for skilled employment.

He also highlighted on the need to mobilized targeted population particularly the rural youths, the weaker section and women to make them aware of skill training and motivate them to take advantage to take skill training programme.

"We have to do lots of home work to convince them that skill is more important than even service in government jobs," he said adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has constituted this board of chief ministers to go in details about how to go and make this nation a skilled nation.

Badal has set June 25 as the deadline for the state governments to submit their views and suggestion.

NITI Aayog CEO Sindhushree Khullar also expressed the need to speed up the recommendation process and expressed concern that only few states have responded in writing on the same.

The Chief Ministers are expected to recommend measures to NITI Aayog on how to deal with shortage of skilled manpower in production lines and also to propose measures to expand outreach of skill programmes particularly in demographically advantageous states.